Darkness Fading
by skipmcgee
Summary: What do you cling to in moments of darkness?


Title: Darkness Fading

By: SKT

Disclaimer: not mine, yadda yadda yadda

Summary: What do you cling to in moments of darkness?

A/N: Written for the Harry/Ron Challenge #2: One or both gets ill/hurt. Written in the span of around 2 hours, and with no beta, so any mistakes are, of course, intentional. I think they add character to the story, like a broken nose that isn't fixed quite right (and if you bought that I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you). Point is, hope you enjoy it!

Darkness Fading

'_Why_' Harry wondered, '_does everything always come back to Him?_'. He didn't have time for his mind to come up with the answer, although he doubted he wanted to hear it anyways. As his body was slammed backwards into the brick wall behind him, his entire mind had one thought: '_ow_'. He grunted, and pain and darkness surrounded him as he fell.

When he woke up, it took Harry a moment to take stock of his current situation. Everything was different. Horizontal when before he was vertical, tired when he had been full of enthusiastic energy before, sore and hurting when he had felt fine. He had a terrific headache, and he was pretty sure he hadn't been covered by a scratchy blanket that had smelt faintly of....butterbear? He was in the Leaky Cauldron?

Harry had quickly become accustomed to the way their sheets smelled; it seemed as though no matter how many cleaning spells were used on it, the sheets always smelled faintly of the drink. Harry had often wondered if that was just because the sheets had seen that spell so often they were resistant to it, that if they just washed the damned things that the smell would go away.

'_Which_' He thought almost idly, '_is neither here nor there_'. And he gave a mental shrug. He was alone, it was dark, he was confused, and he hurt. He thought he'd allow himself a moment to gather his bearings, so to speak.

Blinking with a more determined effort to wake up, Harry slowly began to push himself up on his elbows. Apparently he wasn't awake as he thought himself to be though, because when a pair of hands gently pushed him back down, he literally jumped in surprise.

"Hey Harry relax, it's just me." And at the sound of Ron's voice he did calm slightly, even though he was surprised Ron had stayed quiet this long. He must have been asleep. In any case, Harry wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"Wher-" he flinched a little at the sound of his own voice, hoarse and raspy. He made to try again, but Ron must have heard him, or more likely, just knew what he would ask.

"We're in the Leaky Cauldron. You've been out for a few hours. You really should be in St. Mungo's, but I couldn't risk bringing you there and having someone spot you. And we really don't need any other casualties." Harry nodded, and cleared his throat.

"So who knows we're here?" "Just Hermoine and some of the other Aurors. We're supposed to lay low until they can figure out where Rookwood went." This made sense to Harry, and almost answered that other question that had been niggling the back of his mind since he'd woken up. Almost.

"Is- is that-"He paused, coughing and clearing his throat again, until he could continue.

"Is that why sitting here in the dark?" There was an odd pause, and Harry heard Ron make a strange noise in the dark. Then his voice was suddenly closer to Harry's, as though he were leaning in right in front of him.

"Harry....Harry, the lights are on".

For several hours Harry had lay on his bed in darkness, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not. Mostly he alternated his time between devising more and more elaborate ways to kill the Death Eater who had done this to him, and despairing that he would never see again. It wasn't as though Harry had ever taken his sight for granted; he'd always known how fragile a thing it was. It had taken years of failing marks in school, banging into things at home, and incorrectly mixing or cooking things before the Dursleys had finally invested a pair of glasses in Harry. And even then they had attempted to gain back their monetary loss by cutting back on his food intake for the month.

And years later it had been Harry himself who had been forced to buy a new pair as his prescription had changed enough to make it difficult to see through the old ones. He had waited until his fourth year, when he could sneak out and use the Knight Bus to get around. He'd been experiencing progressively worse headaches until he finally went to see an eye-doctor, who had looked at him in amazement when he had seen his old prescription.

"You do know you've been destroying your eyesight with these glasses, right?" Harry had just shrugged; it wasn't like he'd been able to get around before then.

All of this lead back to one fact, though, and Harry wasn't sure he was quite ready to deal with it yet, or all of it's implications. He directed his one-sided conversation back to his favorite topic of late, Ron.

Harry was well aware that is was only because Ron had gone downstairs to get food and news from the other Aurors that he was feeling panicky. Ron was, a little surprisingly, one of the Ministry's better Aurors, having a good balance of physicality and the strategic mind that served him so well in chess. He and Hermoine were both doing exceedingly well, although, of the two of them, it seemed as though Ron was the one who could have the career running the office in several years time. At least that was according to Hermoine, who was almost as pleased about Ron's success as Ron himself. When Ron came home, often at all hours of the day and night, he was exhausted but happy.

Which was often the case for Harry himself these days. After defeating Voldemort in his last year, Harry had held no illusions about the number of people who would be lining up to try and finish the job. He knew that there would be negative repercussions from former Death Eaters, and saw no reason to go looking for more trouble. He knew he was happiest playing Quittich, and had easily decided to join the English team out of school, making him one of the youngest players in several centuries. He traveled a lot, but it wasn't too bad, and between the hours of their schedules, he and Ron had managed to settle in to a sort of hectic domestic bliss.

A small noise startled him out of his reverie, and he cursed himself as he flinched in frustration and fear. He suddenly felt very alone, and tried not to focus on the feelings, just tried to relax. He really had no choice. When he heard the door open to Ron's accompanying voice, however, he let out a deep sigh of relief.

"Hey Harry, sorry I took so long but I wanted to make sure I had all the information I could get before I came back up here." Harry sat up against the headboard and turned his head to what he thought was Ron's direction.

"Sure about what?" Ron took a deep breath and Harry felt a weight to the right of his thigh, followed by the sound of chair legs scraping the floor.

"Here, I brought us lunch" Harry folded his arms across his chest; he had very strong opinions about being left in the dark figuratively, although he couldn't say that it wasn't as though he wasn't in the dark anyways, so why bother? But before he could voice any of his displeasure, Ron cut in.

"Harry I know, I'm gonna tell you, just eat some of the sandwich first" The unspoken 'please' did not go unnoticed, and Harry sighed before opening his hand and taking the food placed in it. To his surprise, though, after two bites Ron started talking.

"Well, I talked to Hermoine and she said she's working on catching Rookwood, and the other Aurors said to lay low here for at least another day." Harry nodded absently, chewing on his sandwich methodically. When he had finished his glass of pumpkin juice Ron spoke again.

"Harry, you said it happened right outside the stadium, right?" Again Harry nodded, already remembering the flash of light and accompanying pain from Rookwood's wand.

"And are you sure you heard what he said correctly?" Harry felt his eyebrows furrow as he took on a face of irritation; he knew what he had heard, and Ron's attitude was starting to piss him off a little.

"Yes, I know what he said. _Exercioum._ Why? What does it mean?" He could hear Ron shifting.

"Hermoine and I think it might be a definitive of an old curse Voldemort dug up before he died. Designed to exaggerate your biggest weakness. Physical weakness. Harry's mind swirled with the implications, none of which he wanted to deal with. The words were out of his mouth before he could even consider if he wanted to hear the answer.

"Is it permanent?" "It might be... Hermoine said they haven't seen it used in hundreds of years, and not in this form anyways, so they don't know. Maybe not." Harry heard something in his voice, something that made him persist without thought.

"It's supposed to be permanent though, right?" Ron's reply had a tightly held note of despair in it. "I think so". And suddenly, it was all Harry could think of.

"Oh".

Harry had realized soon after killing Voldemort that the backlash from some of his followers were going to become more than a nuisance. Most of the Death Eaters had attempted to return to their previous lives, tried to pawn off the same excuses they had the last time they thought him dead. There were, however, a select few who thought it to be their personal mission in life to avenge their fallen 'Master', and kill Harry as punishment. It was the reason Harry had been forced to cut his season short this year, and the reason the Ministry had taken to installing Aurors around him more often then not. The latter he found mostly redundant, as he was living with one and best friends with another, and it wasn't as though he couldn't take care of himself.

And yet, he had still found himself alone and unprepared after the last game of the season, the one game Harry had to be in, had to have been a part of. Ron had been furious to hear that Harry had been alone.

"What the bloody hell Harry? That was her bloody fucking job, you think she could have gotten over herself!" Ron had been referring to the fact that his assigned guard for the night, a fairly new Auror named Maisonet Dawson, had been too embarrassed to hang around the locker rooms after the game had finished. She had suggested she meet him at the gate, and, as Harry had tried to explain to Ron, he had told her to go. Harry didn't know what had happened to her since then, although if he had been forced to place a bet he would have said that Ron had probably ripped her a new one, even if he wouldn't say so now.

Ron's voice snapped Harry out of his reverie with an almost physical force.

"Harry, don't worry. We'll figure this out. Really, we will..." Harry was somewhat surprised at the outburst, but all the same found himself agreeing, if only to placate Ron. "Of course we will". Then he heard his own voice, dazed and distant, and quickly tried again. He could hear through Ron's wall of determination a fissure of panic, and struggled to relieve him of it, even as he took it on himself.

"I mean, even if it's not...if we can't...if it's not reversible, it'll be okay. We'll work it out, and-"He groped around the bed, searching for Ron's hands. When he found them he held them both loosely in his own, his right thumb stroking absently. "-and it's not like I'm afraid of the dark or anything, I spent enough time in a darkened closet to get over that one..." He felt Ron's hands automatically tighten around his own, and instantly regretted his words. He'd forgotten that he had once told Ron how he had gotten over a fear of the dark, something most children have to deal with at one point or another. It wasn't so much that he stopped feeling afraid, but more that the choices had been to get over it or go crazy, alone in the dark. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that had not been the best example.

He wanted to try again, wanted to rid them both of this enormous fear-induced weight settling on both of them, but he was so tired, and couldn't think past the next twenty seconds. Surprisingly tired for having done nothing more strenuous then walk to the bathroom and back, Harry shuffled backwards on the bed and lay down, pulling Ron with him by their still attached hands.

Ron hesitated, then carefully lay down next to him, as though Harry were made of glass. Harry could feel Ron's breath ghosting across his cheek, and slowly leaned forward, until their foreheads were touching. He felt better then he had since he'd woken up. Touching Ron, even in darkness, was so familiar, so comforting. It was as though with each inch of skin some of the darkness faded away.

"Ron, it's going to be okay. As long as I know you're there, I'll be okay." Ron sighed, breath gusting over Harry's lips. Then he whispered "I know. I know. Even though you're laying here, exhausted, looking like someone slammed a bag of bricks across your eyes, and even though you might be blind for the rest of your life, and even though when I apparated there you were laying on the ground so still I thought you were dead-"Harry surged forward, seeking Ron's lips, and felt Ron grab him with a desperation that matched his own.

They clung to one another, fears pouring silently from one pair of lips to the others'. This was how they communicated feelings best, neither of them good at expressing emotions. Harry hadn't had someone say 'I love you' from 15months until the time Ron had said it, and Ron having six older brothers had never wanted to expose any emotion that could result in teasing and harassment.

They tended to express everything through touch, through kisses, and, until now anyways, through shared looks. Harry felt another surge of panic at the thought, and leaned hard into Ron, who gasped even as Harry kissed him desperately.

It was probably several factors converging at once; the lack of sight causing heightened physical sensations, the emotions, the fact that it had been awhile because of their schedules. Whatever the reasoning, whatever the cause, Harry never thought he'd want to cry as he came. He'd never thought it was possible to feel so high and so low at the same time, and as he drifted off in a sated slumber, he thought he felt not only tears on his cheeks, but tears in his hair too.

And it was waking up the next morning to a blur of red hair that brought new tears to Harry's eyes, albeit for a different reason.

Harry watched as Ron slept on, blurred even more than usual without his glasses, but still most certainly there. He watched as Ron shifted in his sleep, as he turned his head to sneeze and then wipe his nose on the blanket they were currently using.

"Ron, that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen". Ron turned his head back in Harry's direction and mumbled sleepily. "Oh bugger off Harry, do you see any damn tissues...." Silence settled over the bed for a moment, then Ron's eyes flew open and he stared at Harry in complete bewilderment.

When Harry smiled Ron looked absolutely shocked, then grabbed Harry's face in his hands and pressed an incredible, hard kiss to his lips. They stayed like that for a moment, then Ron pulled back, and looked into Harry's eyes, searching for something. He seemed to have found it, because he said "You son-of-a-bitch, don't ever do that to me again"

They shared a grin, and Harry leaned over Ron, pinning him on his back. Ron looked up at him, joy and relief sharing space in his eyes and on his face, and Harry had to close his own eyes at the overwhelming relief. When he opened them again Ron was looking up at him curiously, and Harry smiled, saying "I think a little celebration is in order, don't you?" Ron nodded eagerly, grinning. "Oh defiantly, this is a time to celebrate if I ever saw one." Harry leaned down, never taking his eyes off of Ron's.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Fin


End file.
